Deaf Children

The Casselberry branch of the Seminole County library system has acquired 57 children's books for use in teaching correct English through a modification of sign language.The books are for parents with deaf children and designed to expose children to vocabulary, phrases and simple sentences that relate to their daily life.

CLINICAL THERAPIST —— • National Deaf Academy, a state of the art residential treatment facility serving Deaf children, adolescents and adults as well as hearing children/adolescents and adults with diagnosis of Autism and/or Mental Retardation in a behavioral health setting, has an immediate opening for a Clinical Therapist. A Master's degree in counseling, social work and/or a related field is required. Must be licensed in Florida or license eligible. This position requires that the candidate have experience working with autistic and special needs populations.

Profoundly deaf children are learning to ''hear'' through an electronic belt that gently tickles their stomachs with sound vibrations so the skin plays the role of the eardrum.The belt is a miniature vocoder, an electronic system that analyzes sound vibrations, codes them and transmits them to the brain, where they are reconstructed into a replica of the original speech. Scientists do not fully understand how the brain reconstructs the signals.At the University of Miami Mailman Center for Child Development, two dozen children from 6 months to 6 years old use the ''tummy tickler'' vocoders daily.

UTILIZATION REVIEW COORDINATOR —— National Deaf Academy, a residential treatment center serving Deaf children, adolescents and adults, as well as special needs clients in a behavioral health setting, has immediate openings for a Utilization Review Coordinator. The UR Coordinator is responsible for managing the utilization review for patients within the facility. Responsibilities include acting as a liaison between payors and providers, conducting clinical review of admission and continued-stay criteria, collaborating with the Admissions Department and coordinating the appeals process in response to external utilization reviews.

Nathan Jenkins can't hear the explosion of a handmade rocket, but he can watch as an Alka-Seltzer tablet jettisons a film container into the air. The science lesson helped him visualize the concept of jet propulsion. A mother's advocacy for her profoundly deaf son was the impetus for a new program called Silent Science at the Orlando Science Center that enables deaf children to attend classes with their hearing peers. Nathan, 8, was the first deaf student to be paired with an interpreter so he could enroll in the summer camp experience.

CONDUCTOR LORIN Maazel led three orchestras through all nine Beethoven symphonies in a 12-hour, 45-minute marathon in London to raise money for deaf children. Maazel, 58, wearing tails and comfortable shoes, took only brief intermissions to change musicians and symphonies. Organizers said they hoped to raise more than $37,000 for the Beethoven Fund for Deaf Children, which provides musical speech therapy to hundreds of schools in Britain. Beethoven wrote most of his symphonies after he began to lose hearing, completing his final symphony when he was deaf.

DEAF CHILDREN may learn to read lips faster if a device that translates sound into electrical impulses is strapped to their chests at a crucial stage in their development, according to the Deafness Research Foundation. Studies of deaf children aged 7 weeks to 5 years found those who used auditory vibrators learned, on average, to lip-read faster than children who did not have the device. One deaf child in Baltimore learned to lip-read almost as fast as hearing children learn to talk, said Moise Goldstein, a Johns Hopkins University engineering professor.

PRINCESS DIANA is yearning to be taken seriously, according to reports in the New York Post. According to a source that knows her, the princess ''says she wants to be known for something more than shopping and being a walking advertisement for British fashion.'' To that end, ''The princess has recently learned sign language to communicate with deaf children, and she'd like to use her talents.''

In the 2 1/2 years she has lived in the county, Pat Weeks, a mother of two deaf children, has been distressed about the lack of support programs for parents of deaf children.But through disillusionment, Weeks has become an initiator. Along with a friend, she is forming a group in which parents can air common concerns, give information to each other, plan family activities and push for better school programs for the hearing impaired.''If you go to a regular PTA meeting, you feel you have a special problem,'' said Weeks, 39. ''When you're in a group like ours, you know what everyone is talking about; it isn't a special problem.

Some of the most interesting methods to study language development are coming from the study of deaf people and those who are proficient in sign language who can also hear.Sign language uses the principles of spoken language, but requires a complex set of gestures perceived visually.Researchers have found convincing evidence that sign, like spoken language, is also processed in the brain's left hemisphere. Ursula Bellugi and Antonio Demasio of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies examined a hearing woman proficient in sign who could still speak and sign after undergoing surgery of the right temporal lobe.

UTILIZATION REVIEW COORDINATOR —— National Deaf Academy, a residential treatment center serving Deaf children, adolescents and adults, as well as special needs clients in a behavioral health setting, has immediate openings for a Utilization Review Coordinator. The UR Coordinator is responsible for managing the utilization review for patients within the facility. Responsibilities include acting as a liaison between payors and providers, conducting clinical review of admission and continued-stay criteria, collaborating with the Admissions Department and coordinating the appeals process in response to external utilization reviews.